Hemlock Gorge

Hemlock Gorge

It’s been a fishing site, a manufacturing site, even (briefly) an amusement park. Now Hemlock Gorge is an “urban wild,” a scenic oasis, and one of the most beautiful spots in the Needham area.

Last week I wrote about Nehoiden and the deed to the land that became Needham and Wellesley. I noted that he kept for himself and his family 40 acres of prime fishing ground in Hemlock Gorge. So this week, it seems logical to say more about Hemlock Gorge, which was favored territory long before Nehoiden, and long after.

Hemlock Gorge,  the section of the Charles River that divides Needham and Newton Upper Falls, has been in continuous use – for fishing, for industry, and most recently, for recreation – for millennia.  Unlike most of the Charles, which tends to be level and sluggish, Hemlock Gorge is relatively steep, and active enough to power the small industries that clustered around its banks in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Hemlock Gorge is now a MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR, formerly MDC) state park.  It is 23 acres in size, bounded by Route 9 on the Wellesley side, and Central Avenue/Elliot Street on the Needham/Newton side.  It is considered an “urban wild” area, crossed by several miles of walking trails with scenic views.

Long before the English settlers built mills, the Gorge’s narrow and rapid channels were prime fishing grounds for Native Americans, who had lived here for thousands of years.  It was a famously-good spot for trapping migratory fish (herring, alewife, and shad). The spring fish runs were so abundant, that the fish could be netted or scooped up in baskets.  To make this task more efficient, fish weirs and traps – angled stone walls that acted like funnels – were built into the river bed.  The weir would funnel the fish toward its narrow opening, straight into the fisher’s waiting basket. There were two known ancient fish weirs in Needham.  The one in Hemlock Gorge, and another near Charles River Street. Both were used by Native Americans and later the English. 

Because the fishing was so good, Hemlock Gorge was set aside and excluded from the deed that Nehoiden granted to Dedham in 1680. The deed conveyed the land that would become Needham and Wellesley, with a carveout of 40 acres in Hemlock Gorge that Nehoiden retained for himself and his family. There is also a small cave alongside the main path, sometimes known as “Nehoiden’s Cave,” that is said to have been in use by Native Americans to dry and store their fish.  Whether the cave was in fact used by Nehoiden or others is open to question, but even that anecdotal story keeps alive the link between this land and the native people who used it.

According to King’s Handbook of Newton (1899), the Hemlock Gorge fish weir was at “the great mid-stream rock” just below Cook’s (Central Avenue) Bridge.  Walling’s 1856 map of Needham shows the rock in this location; there is also a photo of the river, dating to about 1920, that shows the rock in the stream.  Later maps and a modern aerial view from Google Maps show the river running wide and clear from Cook’s Bridge to the Falls. It is possible that the rock, and possibly the weir, became obstructions and were removed to clear the channels, as the mills at the falls grew and needed as much water power as they could get. 

The Falls themselves are a quirk of nature, formed by glacial movement. In the Charles River’s entire stretch of about 80 miles, the 15-foot drop at Upper Falls is the largest single drop in the river.  The falls generated enough water power to turn a mill, making the area a desirable location for colonial industry. As early as the 1688, John Clark of Newton established the first industrial enterprise at the Falls, a saw mill. A grist mill for grinding grain soon followed, as well as a fulling mill to clean and strengthen woolen cloth. Local street names in the neighborhood – Ellis, Elliot, Pettee, etc. – reflect the mills owners’ names and preserve the industrial history of the area.

My favorite old place name is Dudley’s Yard – the small street and river frontage that is now Hamilton Place and Echo Bridge Park on the Needham side. Ezra Dudley’s knitting mill was powered by the falls, and he used his river frontage as wharves to bring in his supplies and ship out his finished goods. The Street was called Dudley’s Yard until the 1940s.

In the early 19th century, the modest natural falls were enhanced by a dam and spillway as industrial use grew – a grist mill, a cotton mill, a silk mill, a nail factory.  The old “Stone House” on the Route 9 end, built around 1853, is the oldest remnant of these manufacturing sites.  The buildings in the Upper Falls Mall, just over the river on the Newton side, were also mills in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The former Mills Falls Restaurant building was once a silk mill. Newton Conservators, a local nonprofit, has posted a website with additional resources about the park, its features, and its history, including links to Ken Newcombe’s excellent histories of the park.

The most famous feature of Hemlock Gorge is, of course, Echo Bridge, which links the Needham and Newton sides of the park.  The Bridge was built in 1876 as a part of the Sudbury Aqueduct system, bringing water from Lake Cochituate to Boston. The bridge has seven (nine? – reports differ) arches overall.  Its main arch is believed to be the longest (or second-longest) stone arch structure in the world (130 feet wide and 50 feet high), and the smaller arches span around 37 feet. The top was finished as a footbridge so people could walk across and enjoy the view. It is a popular scenic spot for daytrips and canoeing, and is especially beloved for the resounding echo (15 times!) that can be generated when standing on the platform beneath (allegedly up to 25 times for a pistol shot – do NOT try this yourself!).

Yet despite its beauty and the fun of shooting pistols, the bridge is a working structure. Inside the bridge is its most important feature, a conduit about nine feet wide and eight high to carry water from the Sudbury Aqueduct to Boston.  The conduit had a slope of one foot per mile, and a maximum capacity of 80,000,000 gallons per day. There are access points along its 16-mile length for maintenance and inspection. According to King’s Handbook of Newton, these access manholes are fitted with ladders, and there were number plates at regular intervals to identify specific locations at need.  Rowboats were once tethered at either end allowed inspectors to travel the length of the conduit.  Although it is no longer used as a primary water supply source, it is still maintained by the MWRA as part of the emergency backup system. It was used as recently as 2010 to carry water when part of the MWRA network failed and needed repairs.  In 1980 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1981 it was designated an American Water Landmark.

Something I recently learned (and I love when that happens!) – Hemlock Gorge, was, for a very brief time, an Amusement Park (and thanks to Ken Newcombe’s “Walking Tour of Hemlock Gorge” for this information).  In June 1893 (three years before Norumbega Park opened), the land was leased to “a public-spirited gentleman” and turned into “a little fairyland” called Echo Bridge Park. Echo Bridge Park featured a Gothic-style dance pavilion and bandstand, a refreshment hall (“conducted on temperance principles”), swings, merry-go-rounds, and other amusements, as well as a broad lawn for resting, picnics, and so forth.  The Park, which was open every day in the summer, was accessible by streetcar, and on a fine summer Sunday could attract as many as 5000 people.

Alas, this little fairyland was short-lived.  Only two years after it opened, the land was acquired by the Metropolitan Park Commission – one of its first acquisitions.  The amusement park was quickly cleared away, and Hemlock Gorge was recast by Frederick Law Olmstead into a ‘natural’ landscape in the manner of the Emerald Necklace. Hemlock Gorge was one of Olmstead’s last projects, before illness forced him to retire. Today it remains an “urban wild,” a scenic oasis, and one of the most beautiful spots in the Needham area.